[Note: March 15, 2020— I have revamped the text of this article and updated its links.]
An article recently published by Bloomberg News explains that American businesses are being forced to change their business practices out of fear of lawsuits for religious discrimination. The article explains that while only 1 percent of the U.S. population is Muslim, 40 percent of religion-based workplace complaints filed in 2015 were Islam related.
It has been a growing trend that Muslims bring lawsuits against their employers for not accommodating all of their religious idiosyncrasies, often being facilitated through the help of the CAIR organization that advertises such legal services to Muslims.
The council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim advocacy group in the United States that is known for its political activism among Muslims in America, having an innocuous facade while also being notorious for its connections to Muslim extremism and terrorist groups.
The website http://www.anti-cair-net.org/ is a website documenting issues with the organization.
Following is a list of many lawsuits that have been recently brought by Muslims against their employers:
A Jury in Illinois awarded two Muslim Somalian truckers $240,000 in a lawsuit for being fired for refusing to transport alcohol for their trucking company. — video
A former Cosco employee is suing the company for religious discrimination due to the fact that he was reassigned to gather carts in the parking lot because he refused to touch pork products when working as a cashier. — link
A Muslim special education teacher sued the Newark Board of Education, the former Newark Central High Principal, and the current Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for religious discrimination and harassment because he was denied his request for religious accommodation allowing him to attend a religious service every Friday afternoon which led to him resigning his position in 2012. — link
A Muslim schoolteacher in Illinois requested an unpaid three-week absence so she could make a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, but her request was denied. So she submitted a letter of resignation, taught students until her scheduled departure, and then later sued the school district for religious discrimination. In the settlement she received $75,000 compensation and mandated that all members of the board of education are required to receive mandatory training on Muslim religious issues. — link and link
A Woman at an Amway plant in Michigan was told she couldn’t wear her hijab for safety reasons upon starting her new factory job, so they moved her to another department but with less working hours, leading to her quitting the job. She then sued using CAIR when the company didn’t find her another full time position despite the fact that head coverings were banned in the employee handbook. — link
A Muslim flight attendant is suing ExpressJet using CAIR for their insisting that she serves alcohol. — link
A woman started wearing a hijab on the third day of her job as a dental assistant in Virginia and was told that she is not allowed to wear it, so she is filing a lawsuit using CAIR (which the dentist is fighting.) — link
A Denver federal jury ruled AGAINST Muslim employees who sued Jetstream Ground Services for not allowing Islamic clothing to be worn on the job. — link
CAIR sued for 21 Somali Muslim employees in Minnesota who were fired for taking unscheduled prayer breaks throughout the day, demanding that they be reinstated with back pay. — link
A Syrian former attorney for Apple Computers is suing the company because they refused to print Arabic on his business cards, refused to re-schedule weekly meetings with his supervisor so he could attend Friday prayers, and they supposedly told him he was not “culturally fit.” He was fired because he showed a confidential prototype of an iWatch to family and friends. — link
CAIR is suing a Wisconsin company named Ariens on behalf of 21 Muslim employees who lost their jobs over taking unscheduled prayer breaks in addition to the breaks that were already scheduled for them. — VIDEO
200 Somalian Muslims in Colorado that walked off the job at a meat packing plant had been fired over demands of having special prayer rooms and being allowed to stop working and pray several times a day. CAIR is filing a lawsuit on their behalf. — VIDEO
CAIR is demanding that the Columbus, Ohio Police Department allow Muslims to wear hijabs on duty. — VIDEO
A Sunni Muslim applicant for a children’s day care position in Britain lost her legal battle to wear a head-to-toe jilbab after she decided to try to sue the company on the first day for religious discrimination and “being insulted” because they asked her to wear a slightly shorter jilbab that did not extend over her feet. — link
CAIR reached a confidential settlement against the DHL shipping company in Ohio on behalf of 23 Muslim workers who were fired for taking unauthorized breaks after the company reversed a policy that allowed flexible break times for workers pray. — link
Three Muslim women have sued the Abercrombie & Finch clothing store on three different occasions with the help of CAIR for being terminated for wearing Hijabs that went against its dress code. — link, link, and link
CAIR helped a man in Ohio file a lawsuit against the company he worked at because he quit his job due to his permissions being revoked to have Fridays off to attend religious services. — link
CAIR is helping a group of 18 Muslims in Ohio who were fired by a DHL subsidiary sue for refusing to allow break times which corresponded with their payer schedules. — link
A Somali Muslim’s long flowing Burka got caught in a boot washer at a bakery in Minnesota, so new shorter length Burka guidelines were established, which prompted 30 Somali Muslims to walk off of the job, bringing the intervention of CAIR which had the workers reinstated despite the safety issue. — VIDEO
A Muslim cashier in France sued the Supermarket she worked at because she was not permitted to wear a hijab, and was awarded 10,000 Euros. She initially worked without wearing the hijab and left the job to have children, then started wearing it upon returning to her job knowing that it was not permitted as a company policy. “This decision gives back her dignity” said her lawyer. — link